The Philosophy of the Upanishads c11.s2.t6.3

c11.s2.t6.3

The body is the prâṇa's habitation, of which the head forms the roof, in which it is bound to the breath as posts by food as the rope.² It is the âtman “consisting of the juice of food,” annarasamaya, in which is enclosed the prâṇamaya âtman, in this again the manomaya, in this the vijñânamaya, and in this as the innermost the ânan-damaya.³ Only later⁴ is the ânandamaya âtman also described, like the rest, as a sheath kośa of the soul.⁵ Usually following Bṛih. 2. 5. 18, and especially Chând. 8. 1. 1, the body is described as the city of Brahman (brahma-puram), heavenly,⁶ desirable,⁷ the highest dwelling of Brahman,⁸ in which as a house the lotus flower of the heart abides,⁹ in which during sleep the fires of the prâṇa keep watch.¹⁰ This city of the body has eleven,¹¹ or more usually nine gates,¹² viz., the nine openings in the body, to which when eleven are reckoned the navel and the Brahman orifice (brahmarandhram) are added. The latter is an imaginary orifice of the skull on the top of the head, through which, according to Ait. 1. 3. 12, Brahman entered into the body, and by which the soul, or according to the more usual view only the souls of the emancipated,¹ having ascended by the hundred and first vein (subsequently named, following Maitr. 6. 21, *sushumnâ*), attains to union with Brahman.² Thus the conception is old. The name *brahma-randhram* is first found in Haṁsa Up. 3 in connection with the six mystical and imaginary regions on the body that occur there for the first time (the regions of the belly, loins, navel, heart, neck and eyebrows). It is perhaps an anticipation of this when, in Ait. 1. 3. 12, eye, manas and the ether of the heart (as the scholiast reckons them), are distinguished as special stations of the purusha, or in Brahma Up. 4, eye, throat, heart and head (in Brahma Up. 2, navel, heart, throat and head). From him who forms the light within men proceeds also, according to Chând. 3. 13. 8, the warmth of the body and the noises in the ear. The latter like digestion are ascribed by Bṛih. 5. 9 to the Vais'vânara fire in men, which when we bear in mind S'atap. Br. X. 6. 1 amounts to the same thing. The passages Mahân. 11. 10, Maitr. 2. 6, 6. 27, 6. 31 depend on a combination of the other two.